Community and World of Warcraft

This isn't the first nor the last time we will see a discussion about community and the sense of community, I'm sure, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's important though that we keep these discussions constructive however.I'm going to channel some Ghostcrawler for you this morning and see if we can open up the discussion a bit.

/puts on her hat and robe

Keeping a sense of community while still meeting the needs of the community as a whole is a huge challenge for us. We fundamentally believe that having a sense of community is an important thing for the long-term health of the game. However, we don’t think the way to foster that community is to force players to spam global channels trying to find groups. Dungeon Finder and Raid Finder have enabled a lot more players to run dungeons and raids regularly and we’d be very reluctant to ever go back to a world without them.

The trick for us is trying to grow a stronger sense of community despite having global queuing features that will likely pair you with strangers you may never play with again. We believe players generally have more fun and stick with the game longer when they play with friends. The queue systems are a substitute for when you don’t have enough friends (or even enough friends online at the moment) to participate in that content. We aren’t trying to, and wouldn’t want to, turn WoW into a solo game. These systems are merely to facilitate a need to connect more easily with players interested in tackling this content.

Warrior Banners

Daxxari

We made it a banner for a couple of reasons.

We thought the demoralizing and mocking mechanics were more useful if the warrior could place them somewhere else. For example, imagine a warrior (and not just a tank) using the Mocking Banner to direct incoming adds over to where the tank is currently standing. Now Skull Banner doesn’t strictly have to be a banner, since the warrior will probably want to benefit from it most of the time, but we left it as a banner for one pretty cool reason: since the banner is an ally, you can Intervene to it (!). That opens up some cool gameplay options.

Ultimately, we wanted to try and expand the design potential for warriors a bit. Increasingly, it seemed that any new ability had to be another type of movement, a weapon strike, or shout, or it wouldn’t feel like a warrior ability. We wanted to try something new, and we're hoping that warriors will give them a shot once we’re in beta and let us know how it feels.

Tanks in PvP

Daxxari

Anyway, we don't have a problem with players choosing to PvP as tank specs, but if they do, then we want them to be effective because of their defensive and control abilities, not because of their damage-dealing potential. It's intentional that, overall, tanks have to sacrifice some DPS in order to make up for their other strengths.

For comparison's sake, we don't think it would be cool if healing specs did as much or more damage than DPS specs in PvP, and the same is true for tanks. In Battlegrounds, tanks often do have a role, whether it’s running flags, defending a node or tanking NPCs. It is much harder to provide tanks a role in Arenas since the strategy ultimately revolves around focusing down enemy players. Nobody wants to try to focus down a tank, and tanks typically can’t contribute as much to focusing down enemy targets.

I'm not so much for debates, because design isn't about rhetorical prowess. It's about making the game the best it can be for all players, not simply those who can make a compelling case on the forums. Because of how personal (even emotional) the experience of playing a character is, sometimes it's hard to see over the fence into someone else's yard. We have to keep an eye on the whole neighborhood.

Comments

Comment by Yoghurcito

Comment by richert

The ability to intervene a banner seems like it will give it some use in FC pvp, but that seems like a very small role.

Comment by ScottCom

on Tue, 13 Mar 2012 12:59:12 -0500

The graphics look great, I just hope I don't have to upgrade my computer to play.

Comment by Iateyobabiez

on Tue, 13 Mar 2012 14:14:41 -0500

I don't think the word community has ever annoyed me more. Seriously? Using the word community while discussing the community is a tad overdoing it. Seven times! (rant over)

Comment by wolfcub11

on Tue, 13 Mar 2012 14:15:24 -0500

Wait, so they took out buff totems, but gave them to warriors. >.>

Comment by zw4512

on Tue, 13 Mar 2012 14:19:50 -0500

I don't think the word community has ever annoyed me more. Seriously? Using the word community while discussing the community is a tad overdoing it. Seven times! (rant over)

Well tbh, discussing the community without using the word community would be a bit of a linguistic challenge lol

Comment by wobbuffet

on Tue, 13 Mar 2012 16:55:30 -0500

The way he just put it, I'm almost beginning to look forward to this new banner system...

Comment by shadra

on Tue, 13 Mar 2012 17:01:20 -0500

There are rocks infront of the gates... :)

Comment by Soldrethar

on Tue, 13 Mar 2012 17:42:40 -0500

looks amazing can't wait to play Mop!

Comment by Interest

on Tue, 13 Mar 2012 18:19:36 -0500

since the banner is an ally, you can Intervene to it (!). That opens up some cool gameplay options.

This just made my Warrior smile.

Comment by Droidem

on Tue, 13 Mar 2012 20:10:17 -0500

Wait, so they took out buff totems, but gave them to warriors. >.>

Exactly my thoughts. Why do Warrior get this? Can’t they just do a normal Taunt in a new way instead of taking shammy abilities? It's bad enough no one ever remembers that Shaman have Heroism/Bloodlust. Stupid Mage and their Time Warp.

Comment by CcFreAk

on Tue, 13 Mar 2012 22:43:38 -0500

Wait, so they took out buff totems, but gave them to warriors. >.>

Exactly my thoughts. Why do Warrior get this? Can’t they just do a normal Taunt in a new way instead of taking shammy abilities? It's bad enough no one ever remembers that Shaman have Heroism/Bloodlust. Stupid Mage and their Time Warp.Hero/Lust had to be given so some other class, however making it the new 85 spell for mages was the most boring thing ever.

Comment by Rankkor

on Tue, 13 Mar 2012 23:11:39 -0500

dat screenshot? ye, that one? looks awesome.

Comment by SoETankdadin

on Tue, 13 Mar 2012 23:27:25 -0500

I was gonna post a rant about how disappointed I have become in just about anything with blue wording lately, but all Blizzard is gonna say is for me to trust them I will like it eventually because they are the developers and I am merely a consumer.

Comment by Adamsm

on Tue, 13 Mar 2012 23:35:02 -0500

I was gonna post a rant about how disappointed I have become in just about anything with blue wording lately, but all Blizzard is gonna say is for me to trust them I will like it eventually because they are the developers and I am merely a consumer.

Then make a true impact and stop payment.....since you know, you seem to be done anyways.

Comment by larien

on Wed, 14 Mar 2012 01:09:27 -0500

/rant begintanks in pvp.... i got a real easy solution... dont allow tank spec... if you are blood, or prot, or guardian (druid tank spec in MoP), you cant queue for battlegrounds... because lets face it... blood dk's in pvp right now can take on 3-4 people and kill them just because they have such high damage reduction and self heals... the reason people complain so much in forums is because the mechanics of a tank in pvp dont match up, they say tanks do less damage but there is no "tank pvp gear" its all for heals/dps, so a tank is actually getting dps gear in pvp, which doesnt lower their damage output, but it does lower their damage taken drastically...

So Daxxari, I challenge you... show me proof that tank really do less damage in pvp as you say, when they get dps pvp gear like all the other dps specs. -.-

/rant over

Comment by zomg5

on Wed, 14 Mar 2012 02:51:21 -0500

if my computer can support skyrim, it better be able to do the same for MoP cause i really want to play with the new contents

Comment by cyklon

on Wed, 14 Mar 2012 07:46:35 -0500

I have said it be4 and i say it again..God i miss vanilla!The good old days when you had to work to get something, and classes were unique..

It feels like soon all classes will be able to heal, dps and tank.. Sad to say this but the probability of me getting this expansion is low, gonna sit back and w8 for blizz to release patch servers instead. of go private server.

Comment by OverZealous

on Wed, 14 Mar 2012 08:08:08 -0500

dat screenshot? ye, that one? looks awesome.

Indeed it does!

I have said it be4 and i say it again..God i miss vanilla!The good old days when you had to work to get something, and classes were unique..

It feels like soon all classes will be able to heal, dps and tank.. Sad to say this but the probability of me getting this expansion is low, gonna sit back and w8 for blizz to release patch servers instead. of go private server.

Well, good for you. Do you also miss the extreme balance issues and tons upon tons of bugs?

Comment by Adamsm

on Wed, 14 Mar 2012 11:54:51 -0500

I have said it be4 and i say it again..God i miss vanilla!The good old days when you had to work to get something, and classes were unique..

It feels like soon all classes will be able to heal, dps and tank.. Sad to say this but the probability of me getting this expansion is low, gonna sit back and w8 for blizz to release patch servers instead. of go private server.

Groovy; the more people with nostalgia glasses off somewhere else the better.